03/07

First off, Internet calls on Vonage are sometimes but not always telephone quality.  By this I mean you will get echoing once in awhile, and you will also get latency that causes one party to talk over another.  Calls will fade sometimes too like a cell phone at the limit of its signal, but it is never as bad as cell phone calling.  Overall, calls are clear and sometimes the person on the other end of the line seems to be standing next to you.

Secondly, the voice mail system is annoying.  Because it is a central mailbox system, one must punch in all 11 digits of one's phone number then hit the # key before entering a pin number and finally getting to the call menu.  The call menu works well.

The fatal part of Internet telephony occurred today.  The cable system went down and knocked our computer and the phone offline all day before it could be restored.  If you are thinking of installing an Internet telephone, make sure you have another way to call out when this happens.  Keep your cell phone or at least one land line.  My wife was upset about the system going down.  She cannot tolerate the hit-and-miss quality of the service -- and I don't blame her.  It is a young technology and phone calls are as unstable as the Bell Telephone System was when it was first installed more than 100 years ago.

Internet telephony companies have a giant leap to make before the masses move from old phones to VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol).  We aren't thinking yet of getting rid of Vonage, but the experiment has been and will continue to be instructive. 

Next, I want to see just how much Internet telephony has reduced the phone bill.  It had better be a lot.
 

Marketers at Dr. Pepper created their own blog (http://www.ragingcow.com), which purports to tell the story of the creation of the drink from a cow's point of view, as far as I can tell.  The site looks and feels like a blog. 

Next, marketers will go after "key influence bloggers" (That's what they call 'em.) and get them to write about "Raging Cow" through providing links to the "Raging Cow" site and giveaways like T-shirts and caps. As you might expect, they are reaching out to teenagers who write blogs to be the influence group. 

Dr. Pepper is not paying these youth so they are free to write about the drink in any way they want, and unfortunately, they won't disclose that they have any relationship with Dr. Pepper either.  (I find this objectionable.) 

Will it work?  Give Dr. Pepper a grade for trying.  Some are betting that it won't because it is phony from the outset.  On the other hand, movie Web sites have had great success in getting fans involved with films before they appear.  Maybe "Raging Cow" will have the same positive outcome.

Somehow I think such youth-oriented marketing would not survive with more skeptical adults.  But then, Dr. Pepper is not aiming "Raging Cow" at the over-40 crowd.
 

03/05

Despite three years of falling prices, which have significantly improved the attractiveness of common stocks, we still find very few that even mildly interest us. That dismal fact is testimony to the insanity of valuations reached during The Great Bubble. Unfortunately, the hangover may prove to be proportional to the binge.

What this means to PR practitioners is not pleasant.  PR has shrunk and will remain reduced for the foreseeable future.  Its rapid growth was due to The Great Bubble and its hangover is proportionate.

I met yesterday with an executive recruiter whom I have known for 20 years.  She lives on the West Coast, so we have rarely had an occasion to do business with one another, but we've kept in touch.  She was in New York for a conference and stopped by to discuss the state of the industry.  

Her gloom was palpable.  She verified sour estimates I had made and added more of her own.  She believes -- as do I -- that the lack of growth in PR will continue for a few more years.  We have, in other words, gone back to the future.  Our growth rate -- or lack of it -- is closer to what it was before. The Great Bubble and greedy communications combines drove unsustainable revenues.

One point she made surprised me.  She believes marketing PR in high-tech will never recover and further,  many practitioners who specialized in product launches and trade shows will never work in high-tech again.  That surprised me, but I agree with her.  High-tech has matured and there is little in the offing to spark another rush like The Great Bubble. 

She believes mid-level practitioners must retread themselves to become counselors while senior level practitioners must move to a consultative role by taking on large problems that hold a company back.   As for juniors, while she did not address their fate directly, it was clear she believes there is little room for them. 

So what are young practitioners just out of college to do?  Beats me.

 

03/04

There appear to be many reasons for the situation in which he is working.  Most CEOs aren't getting a break these days in the post-Bubble economy.  They are as vilified now as they were celebrated three years ago.   Secondly, this person made a few minor stumbles with the media that have come back to bite him.  His honesty was taken as arrogance.  He knows better now and is more careful, but the pattern was set early, and he has to live with it.  Third, what this fellow must do to turn his company around is not visible to the naked eye, so most media assume it is not that important and they are willing to listen to the critics.

Should we be sorry for someone who is criticized unfairly?  A cynic would say CEOs are paid well so they should be able to tolerate carping.  It comes with the job.  An individual with a more balanced point of view would say that criticism is underserved but shrapnel comes with public exposure.  It's a fact of life unfortunately.  The more public one is, the more the media look for feet of clay.  Just ask any president of the United States.

The one temptation this and any CEO should resist is disappearing from public view.  If one is doing something right -- although it is unpopular -- he or she has to stand in front of the troops and lead them on into the bullets.  That's what leadership is about.  The CEO we talked to is a great leader but even he was wondering if it was worth his time when the media aren't listening.  It's tough to have to say to a CEO that one shouldn't disappear because all that will do is give enemies more ammunition and demoralize the troops.

There are times when being CEO is no fun at all.
 

 03/03

It is one thing to have big events to build traffic:  It is quite another not to have the item everyone is looking for.  It is OK to say one will serve customers with a broad range of choices.  It is another to sell only house brands to prevent customers from getting competitors' offerings.  It is fine to talk about customer service: It is disastrous to have a rude and uninformed sales staff.

Retail chains have enormous opportunities to interact with the public during a typical week and to please customers or turn them off.   That is why I walk the aisles of a chain store I know well as often as two or three times a weekend. 

Some things leap at you even before you enter a store.  Are carts strewn over the parking lot?  Is there trash about?  Is the building clean and well-presented on the outside? 

Entering a store begins a long string of questions.  What is the first thing that hits your eye?  Specials of the week? Markdowns?  A demonstration designed to sell more of some kind of gadget?   Some stores make little effort in initial presentation and without realizing it, bias the public against them. 

Once one is cruising the aisles, many things are important -- signage for example.  Can you find what you are looking for?  It is amazing to me how poorly stores are laid out for signage -- especially grocery stores.  Type is often small on signs hanging high overhead.    In an aisle, there are many decisions stores should make including where to shelve goods.  Hot-sellers should be at eye-level for example, so one doesn't have to reach for the item and there is less chance of missing it while passing by.  The ends of aisles should have displays called end-caps that offer high-margin or impulse buy goods.  Store shelves should be faced to the front so the impression is of neatness rather than bags and items spilling to the floor.  Items should be sorted to prevent mixing of sizes and types.  (Bolt bins in hardware stores are the worst.  No bolt ever ends up in the right place because customers drop bolts anywhere while they are looking.)

Hundreds of tiny considerations like these make the difference between a productive store that relates to its public and a store that drives customers away.   Store managers are key to retail public relations, and one should never forget that.